4.5.

The New Dawn Series tournament will begin in around 3 weeks time, and with the day nearing, more and more students are staying later to practice in the training theater. Furthermore, with the influx of exchange students, the quiet nights where Sequencee could practice undisturbed no longer existed.

Perhaps it was a coincidence how Iona had stopped sparring with Sequencee during this period. After all, if people saw how he was being beaten up by a maid, it would raise a lot of questions.

A white magic circle could be seen spinning in the air a few meters before Sequencee.

"Arrester.."

Learning from previous experience, Sequencee went to ask the conductor, Mister Din for other magic formulas he had created for the ensemble. He was kind enough to borrow him his work, though, Sequencee had to be careful not to lose it.

Pouring mana into the spirit catalysts, the air within the magic circled looked like it was being distorted downwards. The sand on the ground looked much shiner too.

'It just raises gravity.. right? I don't get why this is a spell for an orchestra."

Moving on, Sequencee experimented with other magic formulas. A spell that creates a hail of lightning chains, a spell that creates a reinforced cube golem.. there didn't seem to be anything here that Sequencee could add to his arsenal.

'Maybe Star Auger and Starfall are the exceptions.. after all, these pieces are made to win."

Amidst his experiments, many explosions and sparks rang out amongst the students that were sparring in the other bubble fields. Sequencee would every so often look over to see how they were fighting, and he was to be honest, he wasn't sure if he would make it out victorious if he actually went up against any one of them.

'Hm? These are third year students right? Did they just return from their posting?'

There were a few students from Riestallia Academy here, though most were from other academies. Still, as only third year students are qualified to join the tournament, that would mean that the third years were now back on campus..

'I wonder if Reese is here. I promised Shiro that I'd introduce her to him..'

"She's not lying when she said that you would be here.. are all these people monsters I wonder..?"

Sequencee turned to the voice, to find an unfamiliar girl.

"Who are.. nevermind."

Risa dangled the artifact in front of him. She had disguised herself.

"Let's spar," she said with a grin.

She was wearing the academy training uniform, the one piece with diamond patterns nearer to the hem. Her blonde hair tied behind her, jade-colored eyes squinted in expectation.

"If you want to spar, we need to use the mini dueling arena on the upper floors."

"Then let's go!"

"Why are you here anyways? It's not even 5 am."

"To beat stress. Plus.. I've always wanted to test and see how well I'd do against you since.. I've grown way stronger than last time."

'Beat stress.. yeah, after what happened earlier in that afternoon.. Well, I suppose it's fine to fight the hero, right?'

Sequencee couldn't find any excuse to reject. There were only positives to accepting the duel, and it wasn't like he would make much progress tonight training by himself. They went to the upper levels of the theater.

"I may be a bother to ask, so what happened earlier."

"What do you mean earlier?"

"You know.. you left Mochi Corner?"

"Oh, that. I don't want to talk about it. We'll find this brother of her's, provided if that person really does exist and have him drag Linzy back home."

'I don't think that guy really does want to go back..'

Sequence recalled how Linton cursed that he wouldn't be returning to his home town because some alpha is out for him– literally.

'I guess this means Risa and Shiro had an argument earlier? It didn't turn out too well it seems.'

"I wonder why Sir Aaron never allowed us to use this place when he was training us. Then we wouldn't have needed to be beat up so bad each time.." Risa mulled in a dark tone.

Sequence went to activate the emergency teleport protocol, a membrane appeared over the field they were in. Risa tried to touch it a few times. It felt flimsy and springy, so much that it wouldn't be wrong to assume that you could tear it by ramming into it– except you simply phase past it after a certain amount of force was applied.

Risa went to her side of the field and took out a longsword with a bluish hue. It is made of marine tungsten, alloyed with mythirl and the bones of a wyvern.. probably, Risa doesn't know the composition of it but besides the point!

She held the sword in a stance.

"Why are you using that? What happened to your katana?" Sequencee was certain Risa used a black katana last time.

"I have a blessing that allows me to use all weapons types. I've been practicing other swords."

'I see..'

"Are there any special rules you'd want to add? Like one strike, or until someone gets tossed out of the field?" Sequencee asked.

"Rules.. no. Just give it your all. I want to know what level I'm at. If you find that I'm still too weak, don't just kill me directly kay.."

"Okay.."

'I've never fought against her directly.'

Sequencee extinguished the elemental beads around him and prepared trigger spells all around him, all hidden using [Illusion Magic: Universal Haze].

While [Illusion Magic: Universal Haze] may be extremely useful, there was a limit to the coverage at its current tier. Going into detail, Sequencee may stretch it to reduce presence, or thicken it to mask something completely. And, the further he was from the object he was masking, the more of the limited 'haze' he would be using.

Hence why he always kept his elemental beads close, and tiny during continuous training. In battle, as he would need to send the traps further out in the distance, he had less to work with.

"I'll begin."

The change in her tone marked the beginning, her aura changed, the air fell heavy.

– She exploded forward.

Swing–

A giant arc of light swept forth, causing the rupture of a few of these trigger spells, creating a mess of lightning and whirlwinds to rush forth while the light arc itself was stopped by a double barrier.

Risa's figure vanished, Sequencee could tell visibly that she had moved to the right. Compared to Iona, Risa was still slower.

As it stands, the field surrounding him was a kill zone, a little more than a dozen moving trigger spells. They were almost imperceptible, and hoping that Sequencee would run out of mana through a battle of attrition was not even worth considering.

She wracked her brain hard to find a solution.

Aaron was a monster. If she could succeed in giving him a graze, then she should at least be able to strike Sequencee once!

She appeared a distant away, sending the tip of her sword pointed to the sky.. then down.

A magic circle appeared above Sequencee and..

DDOONNN!!!

A huge pillar of light descended.

The reflective barrier above him wasn't able to take the stress, exhibiting signs of cracking.

Sequencee decided to move out.

A new magic circle began spinning behind her; light shards fired off like machine guns.

A few more of the trigger traps were initiated, causing a tornado to break out. The dust blew to the sky, muddling everything in sight.

Risa kept the line of fire directed at Sequencee while moving to dodge the powerful whirlwinds– the comparison between the sound of it hitting nothing and the 'packich!' sound of it hitting his barrier was a good indicator of if she was hitting the right spot even though she couldn't see..

SWWWOOOSSSHHH!!

Risa quickly twisted her body to dodge. At the same time, the great current carried with Star Auger messed up her balance, causing her to nearly topple. The light coming from her sword shot outwards, drawing a line across the protective membrane of the arena.

BBOOM!!

BBOOOM!!

BBOOOM!!

Red Starfall rockets fired off at the speed of sound. Risa swung her sword to deflect one. However, feeling the impact of these things made her quickly realize that she would be breaking her arms if she tried to take it on. She slid past the other two at a split second's reaction. While she could react in time to these stupidly fast moving objects, she would have to admit that they were hard to catch.

Then a moment of respite.. the dust settled.

Sequencee stood there with his clothes and hair in a mess. Likewise, Risa didn't look all that kempt either.

'There's no way I can handle her in close combat. I'll die for sure.'

Sequencee had decided to focus his build towards a proper mage composition. Becoming a magic spearman sounded nice, however, to truly be strong, he had to burn one. Hence, he burned his spearmanship so he could focus on only magic.

Keeping 3 invisible trigger spells, Sequencee used the remaining slots of his ability to summon spirit catalysts in the form of golden beads. He commanded the still spinning tornados to expand and close in on her.

Risa didn't wait for things to complete and rushed forth. Clearing a path using a light arc to disturb the rushing vortex of air. Sequencee fired off a Star Auger to intercept. The clash of mana brought with it a fierce wind and flash of light. The arc gave out, Star Auger continued. Risa merely twisted her body before firing off towards Sequencee once again.

Just as he opened his eyes to the light, Risa had slipped past the trigger traps and reached ten meters of him.

Out of panic, Sequencee erected a giant wall of ice before him and had it accelerate towards her. Incidentally, commanding the trigger spell to trip.

Whirlwinds raged, lighting sparkled, closing Risa's escape path.

[Blessing: Holy Severance]

She swung her sword down.

Her body clad in gold, an intense burst of holy mana cut through and ice and rushed towards Sequencee.

Sequencee lept away. The white cross incinerated the ground, stopping only when it hit the protective membrane of the bubble field, shaking slightly. And during this small gap Risa broke through the other side and bolted for Sequencee.

Obelisks tilted at a 45 degree angle grew from the ground all around her, forcing Risa to retreat. Further adding to the surprise, reaching peak maturity, the obelisks pushed itself out of the ground and flew in random directions.

Risa knocked down these obeliks using her sword, all the while keeping pressure by firing light shards that hit Sequencee's barrier.

'How long can she last..'

Sequencee had used up quite a bit of his mana during practice earlier, so if it were a battle of attrition, Sequencee wondered if he could outlast her. Things were in a constant stalemate, one wrong move, or one step ahead, and everything would be over.

[Activated Trait: Focus]

Sequencee launched a parade of Star Auger drills towards Risa. The tornades contracted and exploded into a mass of lightning. Each time she dodged the Star Auger, a dust cloud would shoot up. The wind and lightning tipping off her movements as she jumped between the obelisks that continued to grow–

By some point, the obelisks began to explode into shrapnels at the chain reaction of lightning. Taken by absolute surprise, Risa failed to react in time and was hit by some. Of course, it didn't reach her vitals, though, cuts and damages to the clothes could be seen.

Firing the last Star Auger in stock, he turned the ground into a quagmire as the shrapnels continued exploding.

"Fuck it!"

Her momentum shifted forward, numerous holy shields manifest around her as mud exploded beneath her feet. Obelisks that came into contact with the shields disintegrated into ash.

Light shards sprayed to clear the path of trigger spells.

[Blessing: Holy Severance]

Another wave of holy mana blinded the surroundings; clearing away the field of spikes.

DDOONN!!

A pillar of light fell to push him out of his comfy magic fortress..

And finally he moved. She didn't miss the chance and immediately swung her sword down at him.

Boing!!

Her attack was reflected by some invisible barrier. Sequencee created distance once more.

"You cockroach!"

Risa, boiling in rage, shot off the hard ground, causing a depression in the earth.

Again and again, it felt like he was always one step ahead of her. He was a mage, and while fighting a mage was difficult due to the numerous spells they could use to cheese someone, their weakness was usually their lack of good reaction speed.

This guy, had no such problem!

[Blessing: Holy Severance]

The Warp Net reflective barrier was broken, Sequence barely dodged the blessing.

Risa swung diagonally.

Left with no choice, Sequencee rolled, quickly contriving a spear.

An upwards swung, Sequencee parried with the shaft of his flabby white ice spear.